


AWOL

by Sholio



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Banter, Community: hc_bingo, Friendship, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 23:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13600374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Peggy didn't think Jack could get far with a bullet wound, but the man's resilience never ceased to amaze her.





	AWOL

**Author's Note:**

> I signed up for the February challenge at [H/C bingo](https://hc-bingo.dreamwidth.org/) and got a 2x2 square of prompts, all of which need to be used in the same fanwork. (One is a wild card, i.e. writer's choice.)
> 
> near death experience  
> first transformation  
> runaways  
> [wild card] bullet wounds
> 
> I was really stuck on this until [some people on DW](https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1168577.html) suggested that "transformation" could be interpreted metaphorically, and then I was like "HEYYY, JACK THOMPSON." Because I'm me.
> 
> AWOL = "absent without leave" (military slang)  
> (Title helpfully provided by [sheron](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sheron))

Peggy found him, eventually, at the hotel. She hadn't expected him to have made it that far. Actually, she hadn't expected him to have managed to get out of the hospital, possibly not even off the second-floor recovery ward, in the shape he was in.

But, well ... he was Jack Thompson, and he was bloody stubborn.

He was sitting on the kerb outside the hotel, arms resting on his knees and head bowed. Peggy sat down next to him, and after a moment Jack gave her a sideways glance. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, and he looked whiter than his shirt. (And where exactly _had_ he obtained a clean shirt? Charmed one of the nurses, no doubt. The trousers she recognized as the ones he'd been wearing when he was shot.)

"Call out the cavalry, did you?" he asked, raising his good hand (propping the elbow on his knee) to shield his eyes from the sun while simultaneously providing a prop for his brow.

"No, Daniel and I decided to keep a lid on it unless we couldn't find you in any of the likely places. We reasoned the SSR has better things to do than drag you back to bed."

"Ah, that was your reasoning, was it."

"Jack," she said, "I suggest you should move to the shade at the very least, else I most likely will have to carry you back to the hospital and I'd rather not."

Jack grunted, but after a moment he let her help him up. He didn't precisely lean on her on the way into the hotel's air-conditioned lobby, nor did she hover; but an impartial observer might have said they were walking unusually close together.

It was markedly cooler in the lobby, and Jack collapsed into a chair. Peggy went to speak quietly to the desk clerk and came back with a cup of water.

Jack sighed and accepted it with his left hand, throwing her a self-deprecating smile -- it was hard not to think that she couldn't even imagine an expression like that on his face a year ago, let alone directed at her. There was a light haze of sunburn over one side of his pale face, above the fur of golden stubble.

"Can't believe they're renting that room already," he said after draining most of the cup. "The room I nearly _died_ in. Wouldn't like to be the sucker renting that ... Where's my stuff?"

"At the SSR. There was some question --" Peggy closed her lips quickly on what she was about to say, that they hadn't known for those first hours whether or not those things were going to turn out to be the personal effects of a dead man. "It's evidence in an ongoing case," she said instead. "I'll have them delivered to Howard's. I didn't expect you to need them quite so soon."

"What, because I'm supposed to stay flat on my back while you lovebirds solve the case for me?"

Peggy raised an eyebrow at him. 

"Oh come on," Jack said. He winked at her. "I saw you two in the hallway yesterday while the nurses were changing the sheets. You're not as subtle as you think you are."

Peggy sighed and reminded herself, not for the first time since he woke up, that she was glad he wasn't dead. Somehow it was much easier to worry about him when he was unconscious than when he was awake and driving her to distraction.

"To return the conversation to the case rather than my personal life," she said, "what was your clever plan, exactly, _Chief_ Thompson? Sit on the kerb until you pass out from dehydration?"

"If you want the truth," Jack said. He hesitated and rested the empty cup on the arm of the chair; Peggy affected not to notice the trembling of his fingers. "Truth is, I ran out of plan right about there. I came to the hotel expecting to run down some clues, you know, make sure all the i's were dotted and the t's crossed --"

"Make sure the rest of us poor sods hadn't mucked up the case, you mean?"

Jack grimaced. "Look, it's a case that directly involves me," he said, with an edge in his tired voice. "Don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same, _Agent_ Carter. I got here on pure spite, if you want to know -- wasn't gonna let that bastard get away with it. Then I got here, and ..." He started to shrug, and a spasm of pain crossed his face. The cup slipped from his fingers. Peggy lunged forward and caught it, and then found herself crouching beside his knees, looking up at him.

"And there was nothing to investigate," she said. She could picture it all too well, the frustration and the way that it could become hard, so incredibly hard to keep moving when there was no reason to move forward.

"Well, not _here_. Guess I just sort of ran out of energy there in the parking lot, like a damned kid's toy winding down. Couldn't think what to do next, just ... wound down." He curled his hand into a fist. The other, the right, remained in his lap, limp as a dead fish.

"Jack ..." Peggy was still crouched at his feet. Absently, she set the cup on the floor, and she reached out to close her fingers over the fist resting on the arm of the chair. He jerked. Despite the heat of the sun outside, his hand was ice-cold to the touch.

"You're hurt," she said. "You nearly died. It's all right not to be your old self. It's all right to let others do the legwork while you remain in bed. And -- is that blood?"

"What?" Jack said. He started to straighten up and curled in on himself again. There was a red stain spreading across the white chest of his shirt.

"Oh ... hell, stay here, don't move." Peggy was back in moments with a towel provided by the hotel staff. Jack had his hand pressed to his chest; he leaned back in the chair and allowed Peggy to press the folded towel against the damp, clinging fabric instead.

" _Now_ will you take to your bed like a sensible person?" she inquired. 

His eyes were half closed, his forehead beaded with sweat; he looked near to passing out. However, he cracked an eye open to give her a look that was somewhere between annoyed and fond.

It was another look she couldn't even have imagined on his features a year ago. War changed people; she knew that already. But sometimes civilian life could change them just as much. It was hard to notice when it happened gradually. It would have been much more striking if he'd shed his skin like a snake and emerged in a new shape ... and no less true.

"What are you grinning about?" Jack asked, half-smiling. "Penny for your thoughts, Marge."

"Well, if you're handing out spare change ... among other things, I was thinking I need to call Daniel at the SSR and let him know I found you before he scours all of downtown LA. Perhaps between the two of us, we can manage to get you back to the hospital bed where you belong."

"Ugh." Jack let his head drop against the back of the chair. "There isn't even a telephone in there."

"No, Jack, because unwell people need to _rest."_

He raised his head with a grunt of effort. "I could rent a room upstairs. You can bring my suitcase over --"

"Jack! Absolutely not! You were nearly murdered in this hotel once. What are you thinking, that you'd like to give them a second shot at you?"

"Peggy," he said sincerely, "I'm crawling up the walls over there. Look, it doesn't have to be _this_ hotel. I just need to get out of that hospital before I lose my mind."

Peggy opened her mouth to argue ... then closed it, and let out an exasperated breath through her nose. It probably said a lot about his state of mind that he'd somehow managed to get dressed and get all the way across town when he'd only just acquired the ability to sit up yesterday. And really, she could hardly blame him. Trapped in a hospital room with no way to keep tabs on the progress of the case, she'd probably have tried to go over the wall, too.

"What if I take you over to Howard's?" she said, and Jack raised his head again. "We can't offer 'round the clock nurses -- at least not the sort that know anything about changing bandages -- but there _is_ a rather talented cook."

"And creepy portraits of Stark watching me sleep."

"That too. We have all the modern amenities." She held out a hand. "What do you say?"

He looked up at her for a long moment -- then clasped her hand, and let her help him to his feet.


End file.
